Self-Healing: Panic Attacks

This is part of a series of postings on self-healing, which you can access via the "Self-Healing" tag which appears in the Slog’s left margin below "Popular Entries". For general tips and background on self-healing, read this.


The cure for panic attacks is to say - repeatedly and preferably (if there's no one around) out loud:

"It's ok!"

Say it in the most reassuring voice possible - the voice you'd use to comfort an upset child.

There's a twist: this isn't self-soothing. Don't say it to yourself. Rather, direct it to an imaginary child. It's the speaking, not the hearing, that helps. Don't absorb the reassurance; offer the reassurance. It's a flip (aka reframing).

You may need to repeat it a number of times (again, it’s best spoken out loud). But you'll quell even horrendous panic attacks via this surprisingly simple little move.


This can make you feel self-conscious if you have a tendency to view yourself on an imaginary movie screen.  You might decide you’re a weak, pathetic, and shaky character grasping pathetically at straws. Three thoughts:

1. You're not in a movie. To imagine you are is to take leave of reality (aka madness). Repeating "it's okay" is unconventional behavior (you might raise your eyebrow if you saw someone else doing it), but it's sane and helpful, while disrupting a helpful process because you don't like how it looks when you peer at yourself through an imaginary camera lens is neither sane nor helpful. This is not a movie. Snap back to your senses.

2. It's nearly impossible to survive and thrive in this world without a few go-to moves (healthier than snorting heroin or gambling the rent on blackjack) reserved for tough times. They may not be "in-character" for the personality you ordinarily try to project, but, believe me, the most confident and secure people you know have moves they do in private when no one's watching (that's how they maintain that veneer). It's ok to drop out of character once in a while to do what it takes to get through hard stuff like panic attacks. It's not weakness, it's strength. It's not how one loses, it's how one wins.

3. Human beings spend their lives in conflict with imaginary people: mentally rearguing old arguments, worrying about faceless attackers and detractors, reliving bygone humiliations, and generally using our imaginations to make our lives a living hell. That's considered "normal", but using the same imaginative faculty in positive ways to help us cope seems, for some bizarre reason, childish and loopy.